Fraser’s family house at Maidenhead or ‘hold any communication’ with his family; she must not lay claim to ‘his Lancia car’ or become a bankrupt (though there seems more likelihood of him entering bankruptcy than her). If these conditions are met, the allowance will continue to be paid to her on the first of each month, and she agrees to inform Fraser through his solicitor of ‘her exact place of residence’ every three months – providing that he does not disclose this address to his family as she does not want to be molested by them.
This strange document has lain for many years with a small bundle of my father’s out-of-date Wills, divorce and tenancy papers, long ago forgotten. ‘She faded out of the picture with a minimum of fuss,’ he wrote of Agnes May in his brief account. ‘I suppose she was given some money but I’ve no idea how much. At the end of it all we were very broke.’
The Deed of Covenant is signed by Agnes May Babb in a spiky, slightly backward-leaning hand. I touch it with my finger. It is this signature alone that has given me her name and provided a small crack in the dark, enabling me to find out more about her.
By trawling backwards over the years at the Public Search Room at St Catherine’s House I came across Agnes May’s previous marriages and her birth certificate. Now I travel forwards to find out whether, after she had separated from my grandfather, she remarried. From my grandfather’s point of view the good news (since it put an end to his monthly payments) is that she did marry again on 15 February 1934. Her husband was a thirty-year-old divorcé and ‘company director’, Reginald Alexander Beaumont-Thomas.
Agnes May Beaumont-Thomas (formerly Babb, previously Lisle and initially Bickerstaff, who for two or three years adopted the name Holroyd) calculates her age on the new marriage certificate as thirty-six (which is only two years short of her actual age) and she describes her father as a hotel proprietor which she remembered having copied down on her certificate of marriage to Thomas Babb. Her father appears to have had a biblical ability to die and come alive again fairly regularly. At the time of her first marriage, she writes that he is ‘deceased’ as her husband William Lisle’s father was; but he was alive four-and-a-half years later when she married Thomas Babb (whose own father was alive), and had died again by 1934 now she was marrying Reginald Alexander Beaumont-Thomas (whose father was also dead). Actually he did not die until 1942. He died intestate, so there is no mention of a daughter. Despite her wealth, his estate, which went to his widow, was valued at only £207 3s 6d.
The Beaumont-Thomases are married at Biggleswade in Bedford and Agnes May gives her address as ‘The Red Lion Hotel, Sandy’. But to have remarried, she would have had to get divorced. The decree nisi had been granted on 13 June 1933, and the bad news for my grandfather is that he has been named as co-respondent – though it is more than three years since he has been living with her. Perhaps this is no more than a legal convenience since his name is written with no great accuracy on the divorce proceedings – Edwin (instead of Edward) Fraser Rochford (instead of Rochfort) Holroyd. It seems unlikely that damages would have been sought against him but he may well have had to pay the court costs. What is surprising is that even an inaccurately-named co-respondent has been necessary, since husband and wife were living apart for more than eight years (had she gone back to him, her adultery with my grandfather would have been condoned). The speed with which she marries again is spectacular – even quicker (three days versus eleven days) than her first remarriage. For this was a very good marriage she was making. Her late father-in-law, Richard Beaumont Thomas (the name was not then hyphenated), a steel and tinplate manufacturer of Brynycaerau Castle, Llanelly, Carmarthen, had
This strange document has lain for many years with a small bundle of my father’s out-of-date Wills, divorce and tenancy papers, long ago forgotten. ‘She faded out of the picture with a minimum of fuss,’ he wrote of Agnes May in his brief account. ‘I suppose she was given some money but I’ve no idea how much. At the end of it all we were very broke.’
The Deed of Covenant is signed by Agnes May Babb in a spiky, slightly backward-leaning hand. I touch it with my finger. It is this signature alone that has given me her name and provided a small crack in the dark, enabling me to find out more about her.
By trawling backwards over the years at the Public Search Room at St Catherine’s House I came across Agnes May’s previous marriages and her birth certificate. Now I travel forwards to find out whether, after she had separated from my grandfather, she remarried. From my grandfather’s point of view the good news (since it put an end to his monthly payments) is that she did marry again on 15 February 1934. Her husband was a thirty-year-old divorcé and ‘company director’, Reginald Alexander Beaumont-Thomas.
Agnes May Beaumont-Thomas (formerly Babb, previously Lisle and initially Bickerstaff, who for two or three years adopted the name Holroyd) calculates her age on the new marriage certificate as thirty-six (which is only two years short of her actual age) and she describes her father as a hotel proprietor which she remembered having copied down on her certificate of marriage to Thomas Babb. Her father appears to have had a biblical ability to die and come alive again fairly regularly. At the time of her first marriage, she writes that he is ‘deceased’ as her husband William Lisle’s father was; but he was alive four-and-a-half years later when she married Thomas Babb (whose own father was alive), and had died again by 1934 now she was marrying Reginald Alexander Beaumont-Thomas (whose father was also dead). Actually he did not die until 1942. He died intestate, so there is no mention of a daughter. Despite her wealth, his estate, which went to his widow, was valued at only £207 3s 6d.
The Beaumont-Thomases are married at Biggleswade in Bedford and Agnes May gives her address as ‘The Red Lion Hotel, Sandy’. But to have remarried, she would have had to get divorced. The decree nisi had been granted on 13 June 1933, and the bad news for my grandfather is that he has been named as co-respondent – though it is more than three years since he has been living with her. Perhaps this is no more than a legal convenience since his name is written with no great accuracy on the divorce proceedings – Edwin (instead of Edward) Fraser Rochford (instead of Rochfort) Holroyd. It seems unlikely that damages would have been sought against him but he may well have had to pay the court costs. What is surprising is that even an inaccurately-named co-respondent has been necessary, since husband and wife were living apart for more than eight years (had she gone back to him, her adultery with my grandfather would have been condoned). The speed with which she marries again is spectacular – even quicker (three days versus eleven days) than her first remarriage. For this was a very good marriage she was making. Her late father-in-law, Richard Beaumont Thomas (the name was not then hyphenated), a steel and tinplate manufacturer of Brynycaerau Castle, Llanelly, Carmarthen, had
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